Af's founder, the lord, claimed that this was an "exciting good news" and "a happy merger."

         Originally, the essential oil Amoy brand Afu plans to sprint IPO next year. But now, it will "list" in advance. Just changed the way.

         On the afternoon of June 19, the founder of Afu Essential Oil, Meng Xing (flower name: Carver) revealed in the internal letter of the whole staff that Afu will be merged into the mask brand Yumufang and become a part of the A-share listed company.

Carved himself claimed that this was an "exciting good news" and "a happy merger."

But after seeing this email in the afternoon, a former Afu employee didn't think that he wrote in a circle of friends: "Maybe I only live in a dream, suddenly I feel that all the pride has collapsed." A related person, Ding Ying, said frankly: "If it is acquired by L'Oréal, it may be different."

        Once on the Internet, Afu was in its heyday. "Taobao sells three bottles of essential oil, and two bottles are Afu." Among all the entrepreneurial projects of the company, Afu is the longest-established brand to date and the only brand that is so close to IPO.

Therefore, the acquisition is somewhat unexpected, and the acquisition side is the imperial mudhouse that has emerged at the same time.

        Next, how will the two Amoy brands, which are less in tunemic and completely different in their founding personality, fit together? Before studying at Gutian University organized by Lakeside University, Carver said that he might prefer the feeling of being alone in the company. This time he must make a change.

Yujiahui, the parent company of Yunifang, was officially listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange on February 8 this year. On June 19th, it issued a suspension notice, saying that the company is planning a major event in the purchase of assets. The target company is Beijing Maosi Trading Co., Ltd. (Afu Essential Oil Company). At present, the asset acquisition is still in the negotiation stage, and the two sides are actively negotiating and communicating.

        Afterwards, an internal letter from Caroline stamped the matter. He also talked about the past with Taobao in the Royal Mud.

        As early as 2009, Carved Master met Dai Yuefeng, the founder of Yunifang. At that time, Afu, who had opened the store online, had just started to contact Taobao, and Yumifang was already a well-known mask brand of Taobao. After that, the small but accurate positioning of Afu, also quickly established a foothold in Taobao, so that many people later felt that Afu is an Amoy brand.

In various e-commerce occasions, Carver and Dai Yuefeng often meet and impress each other. Carved Lord said, "He gave me the impression of being simple, intelligent and super hardworking." In turn, Dai also expressed appreciation, "Afu brand tonality and marketing unique."

       They have an intersection afterwards because of Lakeside University. Dai Yuefeng is the first phase of the lake, and the lord is the second phase. He said in the letter that the biggest turning point was a study organized by Lakeside University at the site of the Gutian Conference.

       Gutian’s two-day course became the biggest gain of his two-and-a-half-year-long lakeside, and it’s as big as “sweat”. He also introspected this way, saying that he had never been a qualified entrepreneur. He used to know the importance of carving products, but he always ignored the organization.

       On the night after the day of study, the lord met Dai Yuefeng. Two people chat, talk about personal dreams and corporate mission.

       Carver also described Dai Yuefeng in his employee's internal letter. "His love for the cosmetics and cosmetics industry is obviously more than me." Maybe I am really interested in it. It is also a restaurant, O2O, and It is air purification, but also loves the small theater... And he really likes to study cosmetics. He knows that his circle of friends knows that as a male entrepreneur, he is really trying a lot of masks every day, fascinated by cosmetics, focused, Passionate."

        A carver with a wide range of interests, met Dai Yuefeng, who was passionate about cosmetics, and they started to cooperate.

In fact, under the management of Dai Yuefeng, Yunifang has long been more than just a royal mud shop that sold masks many years ago.

Today, it has a number of brands such as Royal Mud, Xiaobu, Huayao and so on. The financial report data is also quite optimistic. In 2017, the main business income was 1.646 billion yuan, up 475 million yuan over the same period of last year, an increase of 40.61%; net profit was 158 million yuan, an increase of 117.89% over the same period of the previous year.

       Afu is no longer the one who sells essential oils.

       In the early days of the venture, Afu defined the category as a brand, and it was stable, accurate, sturdy and concise. Under the synergy of online sales and marketing, marketing and quality, Af has stood out among competitors in a short period of time. In 2013-2014, Afu Tmall's official flagship store was the first in the two-day beauty category on the double 11th.

       In many years, although essential oil skin care products are in a relatively small position, but for different groups and characteristics, Afu has created a distinctive brand tonality. For example, after 2012, Afu tried cross-border cooperation, including contemporary painter Liu Ye, writer Jimmy, world's first musical "Cat", Little Prince and Van Gogh.

       Ding Ying is full of nostalgia for that time. "As a niche brand, Afu has outstanding performance. Afu has always been known for his innovative marketing ideas, especially good at cross-border cooperation with big IP." But he also has some concerns about the status quo. “The brand is gradually developing. When it is 1 billion, it will lose its tonality for the public. Where is the problem?”

       At the beginning of 2017, Afu also hatched an e-commerce operation company to undertake various women-related products business other than “beauty makeup”.

       Previously, it has partnered with kitchenware brand Joseph Joseph, the notebook brand German lighthouse and the high-end nail polish brand Mermaid. Yang Fu, CEO of Afu Essential Oil, once said, “On behalf of the operation project, it can bring more talent reserves to the team. On the other hand, it can accumulate more e-commerce data and form a business closed loop between multiple brands.”

       Carver no longer manages Af personally very early. After Afu, he successively made entrepreneurial projects such as the carving of the burdock, the O2O project, the beaver house, the three-body purifier, and the Xue Yu barbecue skewer.

Among them, the eagerly-stricken Carved burdock was rumored to be closed down several times, but it was born in the Beaver family of entrepreneurial enthusiasm. In the early years, the financing speed of Internet entrepreneurship projects was retained.

       Founded in March 2014, less than a year, Beavers completed three rounds of financing. In this regard, the lord once said: "After reaching the 1 billion valuation of this small matter, Afu spent a full 8 years, the eagle burdock used for 2 years, and the beaver family took the first single nail start from March 11 Count, just half a year."

        Soon, the money for the financing was burned out, and the lord thought that this was related to the positioning of the Beaver family's beauty platform. How fast can it run? Let the plate grow bigger and say that the platform can survive. Probability things.

        The most recent one is already a year ago. On May 10, 2017, Carver announced that Afu Essential Oil and Beaver Home jointly won an investment of 300 million yuan, led by IDG Capital, and invested by Liding. This became the first financing that Afu disclosed.

Afu’s office address is located in a renovation factory called “Dream Castle” near Beijing’s 798 Art Park. Originally, Afu gave employees a relatively relaxed environment. In Ding Ying’s words, “full trust, willingness to pay for mistakes. The advantage is that there is enough creativity and quick response. The drawback is that management is relatively frivolous and there are cost of mistakes.”

       After learning about the acquisition news, the cosmetics industry media gathered beautifully to interview a former employee. The former employee said, “Everyone knows that they want to sell, but they did not expect to be acquired. They said that they wanted to go public before, but I didn’t expect it to be so fast.”

         The former employee’s point of view is similar to that of Ding Ying. “Now Afu’s internal ‘more chaotic’ and ‘high employee turnover rate’”. The original excellent purchase network COO Zhang Xiaojun joined Afu in the second half of last year, and more middle-level left.

      “At the beginning, when the COO came in, but there is no formal appointment now, I was called Af’s chief of staff when I introduced myself.” Ding Ying said.

        Zhang Xiaojun was born in 1968. He has several entrepreneurial experiences. He also worked for Amazon, Vanke, as product manager, strategic planning director, and vice president of logistics. In April 2011, he joined the Belle B2C vertical e-commerce shopping network as a COO. The website is still in operation, but the volume is very small. In 2013, Zhang Xiaojun joined the people's livelihood e-commerce and entered the Internet finance community.

       According to Ding Ying, the original management of Afu is more humane. There is no need to punch in the inside. Now, even if you go to the middle, you have to report it. Everyone has to do things on the list. Sometimes the manpower will check whether it is up to standard. "Zhang Xiaojun will also make special praises, whoever writes well in the weekly newspaper. It is more rigid and has a great contrast with everyone's original thinking mode."

      Ding Ying also revealed that Af's annual performance last year was about 700 million yuan. In the past, the annual growth rate has remained at around 30%. However, in the eyes of new executives, it is necessary to follow the turnaround and want to have a leap before listing. . 30% definitely can't.

    "The results have not yet been turned over, and they have been trapped in the management of the mud. This has a lot to do with the management of the later period, a little quick success, and the final result shows the result of management."

      He believes that the original intention of the founder of Zhang Xiaojun is that he managed the supply chain and hopes to solve the cost control problem of Afu. However, for companies with such genes as Afu, after a strong management, the effect will be, and a question mark is needed.
In fact, as early as May 2016, Afu had a larger appointment. Former L'Oreal's vice president Zhang Yaodong confirmed to join Afu Essential Oil as the president. This may be a signal that after the brand has grown to a certain stage, it will explode performance bottlenecks and management problems. To move towards an IPO, this is a step that has to be taken.

        Shortly after Zhang Yaodong became president, Afu has made a lot of changes to expand the category of essential oils. For example, a new brand of makeup is hatched inside Afu, and it is jointly marketing with Net Red Hu Xin. In addition to facial skin care, Afu's products are involved in bathing, body care, men's, make-up, masks, etc., with hundreds of SKUs.

On the channel side, in addition to online channels, Afu also has 400 offline counters. According to Zhang Yaodong’s previous introduction, Afu’s offline channel expansion remained stable.

Looking back at the Royal Mud, I became one of the few successful Amoy brands. This has nothing to do with the refined operation of the team manager. The eagle himself admits, "These martial arts have always been my shortcomings." When the Amoy brand has started a new retail battle, in turn, the Royal Mud may have this thinking, "Afu offline department store, Shopping The part of the Mall store is the range that Yumifang has never been involved in before, and they want to learn."

      As for the impact of the merger on the team, the eagle wrote in the internal letter that for a long time, the executive team including him would not have a big change. "After all, what we want is the advantage." Complementing ', learn each other's strengths from each other.' He admits that in the supply chain, Royal Mud can help Afdo, but interesting marketing planning, Afu can output to them.

      The eagle still cheers the employees like this: Is it a 500 square meter "single house"? Or is it 1800 square meters, but the two "shared villas" shared by the two are better? If both families have a common direction, a similar concept, a familiar personality, and an open-minded team, they are convinced that the new Chinese products will develop at a high speed in the future. Just like the mobile phone and home appliance industries, domestic brands will rub the foreign brands on the ground. The growth curve is like the pace of the devil... Then, "double fight" must be better than "single house"!

  "To seek resources from various e-commerce platforms - the bargaining power of two strong domestic boutique brands is definitely far higher than one!"

      This is considered to be a positive aspect of Af's performance growth in the next few years. "There is a burst of confidence. I believe that you will immediately feel it in the next few months." The lord also said in the letter that as for the unlisted options in the hands of employees, it will become a share or cash of the listed company. reward,

    "But in the future, who knows?" Ding Ying said.

       In any case, this acquisition is a major event in the domestic cosmetics industry. Once the final acquisition is successful, two cosmetic brands that rely on the growth of the Taodian e-commerce platform will come together and will affect the industry landscape.